I spent the better part of last week in New York, attending a trade show for a client of mine and visiting with a good friend.  During my down time, I literally walked all over the massive city, visiting Chinatown, Wall Street, Times Square and everywhere else in between.  Of course, I managed to make it to a few bakeries while I was there.  (Note:  If you’re visiting the city, check out the “Carrie” cupcake at Magnolia Bakery and the M&Ms cupcake at Crumbs. Both are wonderfully delicious!)

Cupcakes from the famed Magnolia Bakery in NYC.

One thing I did not do was check my e-mail or Twitter account. No, seriously—I did not log in to any of my accounts while I was in NYC.  Honestly, I was having too much fun exploring the city’s treasures, like the Waldorf-Astoria, the shops of Fifth Avenue, and Macy’s in Herald Square.  Because I usually check my e-mail and Twitter accounts several times a day, it was refreshing to disconnect.

I realized while that when I am disconnected, I pay much closer attention to my environment.  It reminds me of one of the (possibly) greatest movie quotes ever—“Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.”  Needless to say, Ferris Bueller had it right.  While technology is all well and good, it’s hard to deny that society isn’t quite as, well, social as it used to be.  Imagine what our lives would be like without texting, BBMing, Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, Skype, and so on.  Some might argue we are indeed just as social as we once were and that our means of communicating have changed.  I can’t deny that fact but I’m also adamant that no amount of technology will ever replace the experience of an in-person conversation.

While checking out Midtown area of the island one afternoon, I couldn’t help but notice one structure in particular—the Bank of America building near Bryant Park.  If you’ve never seen it in-person, I have to tell you that photos alone simply don’t do it justice.  It is truly an architectural wonder.  I stared at it for several minutes, and I watched as hundreds of people, iPhones and Blackberries in-hand, rushed past the building. Granted, I’m sure many of them had seen it before and perhaps some may walk past it every day.  But I thought to myself, “I’m glad I can take a minute to appreciate this truly great sight.”

Sometimes we get so bogged down trying to keep up with technology that we forget to live life.  Try turning off your cell phone or abstaining from your favorite social networking site, even just for a day.  Strike up a conversation with a random stranger.  I guarantee you will have a new, enlightened perspective on the world around you. Who knows—you might even make a new friend.

The magnificant Bank of American skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan.

Growing up in south central Indiana, summertime meant many things for my family:  delicious watermelon from Jackson County, the 4-H Fair and yard sales.  My grandmother, who is one of the best bargain shoppers I’ve ever met, would take me “yard saling” all over our town.  She had a knack for finding treasures in everyday trash.

Coincidentally, my friends and I are hosting a yard sale this weekend. While it’s been a lot of fun planning the event, it’s been a good deal of work.  And the more I started thinking about it, the more I realized there are many similarities between social media and yard sales. 

Many times, I’ve stumbled upon some neat piece of equipment or gadget at a garage sale that has a too-good-to-be-true price.  But alas, I don’t really know how to use it, therefore making it worthless to me. Unfortunately, social media sometimes falls into this trap.  Many clients want to take advantage of online networks and sites because they perceive it to be a high value for very little investment cost.  While this can be true, a big part of social media is knowing how to operate the its tools properly. 

Part of the fun of shopping at garage and yard sales is scouting for bargains.  But that being said, you’ve got to be educated enough to know when you’ve found something of real significance.  For example, I know of a woman who found a rare Hummel figurine for a few dollars at a non-profit organization’s sale several years ago.  She showed it to some local collectors, who told her it was worth hundreds of dollars.  Cha-ching!

This scenario reminds me of Twitter and Facebook, specifically the “followers” and “fans” aspects of each network. It does you very little good if you don’t have the right people clued in to what you’re promoting.  If you’re not reaching your target audience, I don’t believe you can grow your brand effectively because others won’t truly understand the value of what you’re trying to accomplish.

So while many clients view social media as “bargain hunting,” it’s our job to show them the real merit of these tactics. After all, you just never know when you’re going to uncover a treasure. 

Image by edwardkotun via Flickr.

A few short years ago, I was spending most of my days traipsing around the Indiana University campus, making the daily trek to Ernie Pyle Hall, otherwise known as the School of Journalism.  You could often find me there slumped behind a Mac, typing ferociously in order to meet some sort of deadline, with a huge cup of specialty coffee dangerously close to the keyboard. And I was never without two things:  my oversized black Prada tote bag and my dearly loved (though faux) Ugg boots.  

During my senior year at IU, I was introduced to blogging.  I had enrolled in an Online Journalism course (still a very new concept at the time) and one of our assignments for the semester was to create and populate a blog with content.  I enjoyed writing and reporting, so I eagerly approached this task. We were required to have a theme and a name for our blog.  “Deconstructing Pretty” followed current fashion trends with a focus on the business aspect of the industry.  I’ll never forget my first post—I wrote about Sarah Jessica Parker’s commercials for The Gap and how much of a financial impact the ads could have on the struggling store chain. 

Needless to say, I never imagined how much that assignment would shape my professional life. Coming from a journalistic background, blogging was an entirely new world to me.  I found myself asking questions like, “What do you mean I don’t need to quote three sources?” and “Is someone really going to care what my opinion is?”  I had spent years perfecting my style of writing, which obviously did not include my personal feelings on the subjects I was reporting on. 

The famed Ernie Pyle Hall on the Indiana University campus in Bloomington, Indiana. Image by the IU School of Journalism News Department.

When the semester was over, I continued working on “Deconstructing Pretty” and did so even after graduation.  I didn’t have a ton of readers, but a nice comment here and there was enough to encourage me to keep writing.  Eventually though, my life started to get busier and blogging wasn’t as much of a priority as it once was.

About a year after I was hired at Doe-Anderson, I started contributing to the company’s blog and discovered how much I had missed blogging.  It was a welcome addition to my other duties at the agency and I saw it as an opportunity to improve my online writing skills.  Working on the Doe-Anderson blog  and The Social Enthusiast has pushed me to keep up with the latest trends in social media and how I might be able to use these strategies for my public relations clients.  It has challenged me to strive harder to write interesting posts that will be entertaining as well as helpful to those who read them.

I’ve come a long way from the halls at Ernie Pyle.  Not only do I not wear fake Ugg boots anymore, I also don’t question my writing abilities as much as I used to and blogging is a big reason for that.

Faux Uggs, or "Fluggs" as they're often called.

Last week, while driving into work, I stumbled upon a rather heated debate on a local radio morning show.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t about the BP oil spill or the Joran van der Sloot case or another current event.  The debate in question was about allowing children to have Facebook profiles.  Several parents called into the show to voice their opinions.  One mother shared that she allowed her eight-year-old son to create a profile because “all of his friends have one” and she didn’t want her son to be “left out.”  Another mother called in and said that even though her six-year-old daughter had been “begging her for months” for permission to have a profile, she refused to let her, because of safety issues.

In my opinion, children (and by children, I mean anyone under the age of 18), have no business having a Facebook profile.  My main problem with children belonging to social networking sites is the lack of privacy.  We’ve all heard horror stories about pedophiles stalking children online—if you remember, in the past few years, MySpace has been the target of some very bad press for this reason.

So what’s a kid to do?

Togetherville.com is hoping to be the answer to this question. The idea behind the site is that parents and kids can explore social media together in a safe environment.   The network, which launched last month, bills itself as “a fun, safe social site where kids under 10 can play games, create art, and learn new things, with you and people you know and trust there to supervise.” So how exactly does Togetherville keep kids safe?  The site uses the parents’ own social networks, such as Facebook, so that “there is no way anyone anonymous or unknown can ever interact with your child.”

The "kids" version of Togetherville. Image by kmakice via Flickr.

The "adult" version of Togetherville. Image by kmakice via Flickr.

Is a college admissions officer really going to care how you spent your Saturday night?  Maybe not, but many high school students aren’t leaving anything to chance when they apply to the schools of their dreams. A recent New York Times article documented how many teens are changing their names on Facebook as a way to “throw off” colleges and universities who might be checking up on them during the application process.

High school students aren’t the only people doing this.  Many young professionals are also going by an alias or opting to get rid of their Facebook profiles altogether to avoid possible online image problems.

Since our interns at Doe-Anderson are current college students or recent graduates, I asked them how they felt about this issue.  Their feedback was very telling. 

“As a recent graduate and job hunter, how I am perceived on the internet is very important since more and more interaction between employees and businesses is done through the computer and internet, and less face to face.”

“I know that employers looked at the profiles, which is why I made mine private and cleaned it up.   I always watch what I post on friends’ walls and what photos I upload because once something is on the internet, it is there forever.”

“When I began looking for internships, I did become more concerned with what was on my page.  It was not that I necessarily had anything bad on my site, but more that people could form an opinion of who I am before getting the chance to know me in person.  First impressions can be lasting ones.”

They were also quite aware of the consequences of posting inappropriate comments or material on Facebook.  While none of them had experienced any problems first hand, many knew of someone who had.

“I heard about a woman posting she was having a bad day at work and that she wanted a new job… she was fired two weeks later.”

“A classmate of mine had some questionable pictures on his Facebook profile, which caused him to gain disciplinary action from our university. In addition to this, I have known it to be rumored that my Alma matter monitors its students’ Facebook profiles and will impose disciplinary action if necessary.”

I’d love to get some additional thoughts on this topic.  Is it fair to use Facebook to check up on potential employees?  If someone posts questionable material on their personal page, should it be used against them?

Image by smemon87 via Flickr

Let’s get a little zen for a minute, shall we?  Sometimes, our approach to web marketing reminds me of something Bruce Lee once said:

“It’s like a finger pointing to the moon.  **THWACK!!** Don’t concentrate on the finger, or you’ll miss all that heavenly glory.”

We sometimes get focused on the metrics and lose sight of the meaning.  This happens in traditional marketing metrics, and also with web metrics.  The PR person who rattles off pickups, but misses that the outlets weren’t targeted to their audience.  The media buyer who rattles off impressions without realizing their client doesn’t have an awareness problem, they have an adoption problem. This is concentrating on the finger.

On the web, our fallback position is counting pageviews and unique visitors (which replaced “hits” years ago as the go-to web stat.)  But not all pageviews or visitors are created equal.  If you spend all your efforts and energy chasing a bigger gross number of pageviews or uniques, you can sometimes miss  the more profitable fruit of attracting and deeply engaging the best visitors.

Did you know that Time-on-Site is a potential Goal (a trackable conversion) you can set in Google Analytics?  There’s a reason for that.  Please do click the link for Kate Morris’ excellent post on CRO (conversion rate optimization) versus SEO (search engine optimization).  It’s another, deeper example of “seeing the forest for the trees” in web marketing.

So what’s the “heavenly glory” in this little marketing koan?  If pageviews and uniques are the trees, what’s the forest?

Lifetime customer value.  (Warning: the post from Avinash Kaushik at the end of that link may, in fact, melt your brain.  But it’s totally worth it.)  Here’s the bad news:

You’ll notice instantly that almost none of the data above is available in your web analytics tool.

You can’t find lifetime customer value in your analytics.  You can segment your most engaged visitors.  If you sell online, you can look at that segment’s purchase patterns and compare it to your other visitors.  You can use monitoring tools to find data on that engaged audience’s activity around your brand off your website and see the people who are consistently talking up or talking down your company.  Our experience with our clients tells us that your most-engaged audience is almost always your most valuable audience.

Our 5 Cs model for marketing at Doe-Anderson is highly focused on  putting your energy into developing long-term relationships with brand ambassadors.  We’ve do it because it works.  Wonderfully.  But it is a lot of work.  We create curiosity because it leads to connection, which leads to confidence, which leads to conversation, which leads to community.  And community is the holy grail of lifetime customer value.

Put in more specific terms, pageviews and uniques are important when they lead to engagement.  Engagement is important when it leads to not just purchase, or even future purchases, but recommendation and sharing.  At that point, you’ve transcended “acquisition” and created a relationship, not just between the brand and the customer, but between your best customers and each other.   Which brings us back to that holy grail of community.

Relationships are more valuable than acquisitions.  You know this in an unquantifiable way as a human being, where “value” is some inherent, undefined quality.

As it turns out, even when you quantify it and assign it a monetary value, it still holds true.

"compass" courtesy digital_a on sxc

A few short years ago, my former boss went to Todd Spencer, the CEO here at Doe-Anderson, with a simple request to leave the safe sanctuary of PR and explore the relatively new (to advertising agencies, anyway) frontier of social media.

Meanwhile, I was at a local interactive agency, poking my nose outside the door of banner ads, paid search and email marketing and considering whether the world of blogs, forums and Myspace I’d been immersed in at a personal level had any value for my career.

But that was then.  This is now.  2010.  A whole new decade.

Are there still companies who haven’t entered, at any level, the social web?  Sure. But they’re so far to the right of the adoption bell curve, we’ve effectively entered the territory of the Amish.  They might make awesome baked goods, but don’t know diddly squat about marketing a brand in the digital age.

I have a friend who is a social media consultant.  He spends a large portion of his time writing social media policies and response plans.  While that’s admirable work that fills a need now, I warned him that there’s a limited shelf life there.

Social media has lost it’s new car smell, for many if not most companies.

What’s not going away any time soon?

Content strategy–especially channel- and platform-agnostic content strategy that thinks about mobile, social, email, and yes, print content assets as much as the corporate website or blog.

Media relations that includes publishers of blogs, ezines, podcasts, vlogs forums.

Reputation management that recognizes that stories break on Twitter and then migrate to traditional media, not the other way around.

Community management.  Brand curation. These are things we’re just starting to explore, and will be for a while to come.

I’m doing something with this post that we try not to do here at The Social Enthusiast.  I’m talking to my fellow social media professionals.  We try to keep the editorial focus aimed at brand marketers: CMOs, marketing directors, and others for whom social media fluency is necessary but not central to their work.  People who need to develop enough social fluency and mental frameworks to effectively interact with the people who are at the level of mastery and specialty, to be able to judge good ideas from bad ones.

We’re busy doing work in the field–good work.  We see smart, experienced marketers still struggling with this, and we still struggle to communicate with them, and we’re trying to use what we learn from those struggles to create a sort of Rosetta Stone.  That’s why last month’s posts were so allegorical and brief–we were using the common tongue of metaphor and relationships to communicate the universal aspects of social media (and other marketing disciplines) instead of getting bogged down in the tech of it all.

We could court wannabe social media professionals and get a lot more readers.  We could engage more with the fishbowl, and talk amongst ourselves with other social media professionals, and probably get a lot more comments and traffic.  I don’t know–maybe we should do those things.

But the truth is, courting the wannabes, participating in the fishbowl, and even building a Rosetta Stone for marketers who don’t get social media are things that have a limited lifespan.

I’m breaking an editorial mandate, here.  One I myself set up, along with David.  So I may as well deliver something more than another navel-gazing fishbowl post.  I may as well provide some actionable value here.

I ran across this post linked by someone in my Twitter stream.  Apologies–I can’t remember who, or I’d credit them properly.  It outlines exactly how to install Google Analytics on a Facebook Fan page.  Helpful stuff, if you run a Fan page for clients, and they’d like to know if it’s doing well.

http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2010/google-analytics-for-facebook-fan-pages/

The one thing that has really frustrated me with Facebook is that their “Insights” often fails to load, or the data export just refuses to download the file.  There have been a couple of times when people have wanted stats on their page, and I just flat-out can’t provide them for a day or two till I can get FB to unclench and let go of their data.

The days of social media being something clients are exploring, without any expectations of business results, are pretty much over for all our clients.  We have to be able to provide hard data that we’re moving a needle of some sort, somewhere.

Way back when we were convincing companies that they needed a website at all, we talked in hits.  Analytics nerds the world over are pretty unanimous that hits are an awful measurement. But it was a starting place.  It was something to count, till we could find something that counts.

If I have any advice for my fellow social media nerds, its that you need to start counting stuff.  Despite the fact that it’s not a numbers game. Despite the fact that it’s all about relationships.  Despite the  fact that you may, in fact, come from a non-techy discipline, and all this techy analytics stuff scares you as much as the touchy-feely social stuff scares your clients.

Because I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to join the Amish for anything but dinner.

This year at SEMA SHOW 2009, our client Optima Batteries invited over a dozen smart, articulate automotive enthusiasts who were active in online communities to cover the show, talk about their product and get to know the real people behind the brand.

We learned a lot, and we’ll be sharing some of those lessons soon.

Think about your most valued customers. These are the people who love your brand, promote your products and generally want to share what makes you great with everyone they know.

Let’s say a group of these brand enthusiasts wanted to hold a party to celebrate your brand, or what it stands for. Let’s say they contacted you and said "Hey, we’d like to have a big party with a few thousand people who thing your company is just great. We’ll come up with the entertainment. We’ll promote it. We’ll get as many people as we can to attend." Would your response be "That’s great. Tell us how it goes."?

Or would you tell them they can have their party at your headquarters?

Would you give them some cool party favors and invites?

Would you do what you could to make sure it was easy for them to find as many other brand enthusiasts as possible?

If you’re an affinity brand (or if you want to be) you have brand enthusiasts. These are people who are passionate about what you do or the things you make. They appreciate the effect you’ve had on their lives.

These people make up your community—and trust me, in 2009, they’re online. That’s where they congregate, find each other and share their interests—including your brand.

Are you leaving them homeless? Are you saying, in effect, "We know you love us… but can’t you just love us from afar?"

Many companies hear the term "online community" and automatically think "website build." Sometimes that’s a good idea, and sometimes it’s not. That’s not what this post is about.

The point of this post is that if you don’t declare a place that is "home base" for your online community, you’re being a bad friend to the people who you should understand are your best friends. These are the people who are going to save your bacon as trust in traditional advertising and overall brand loyalty continues to plummet. At a minimum, you owe them acknowledgement, an open channel to communicate with you (within the bounds of respectful conversation). If you’re smart, you’ll go beyond that and provide them with the best possible place and resources to have their party on your behalf.

If you can’t justify the resources to set up and manage a Facebook Fan Page, or a Twitter profile, or a blog, or some kind of human-powered touchpoint, then you’d better be prepared to increase your advertising budget considerably. Because it’s going to take a lot of media-buy shouting to drown out your silence in response to their digital love notes.

When you hear the words “online community” do you immediately think of a branded social network?  A Ning network?  A Facebook Fan Page?

What about a discussion forum or message board?  Or a corporate blog?

Many times, businesses get locked into a certain model or mindset when it comes to thinking about online community sites.

The truth is, there are many different models for adding a collaborative, community-building element to your brand’s web presence.  It’s important to consider several different factors when deciding how to begin building your brand’s online community.

What’s your primary purpose for building community? Are you looking for a cost-effective customer support channel?  Then a message board might be the best fit.  Need a tool to educate consumers while providing them the opportunity for direct feedback? You might consider a corporate blog as a logical starting place, and use comments and user-profiles as a starting point for community-building.  Want to build brand passion? A branded social network might be the way to go, but you might also be surprised at the flexibility of options available.   Regardless of what you choose, if you’re completely clear about your purpose, you can be equally clear in defining success.

What are your restrictions and resources? Maybe in a perfect world, a message board would be the best option–but a message board could require an investment of time in moderating and responding that you can’t support, if it’s successful.  If you don’t have the budget for a major website build, then it might be worth considering starting out on Facebook.  Are you in the spirits industry? Then forget about Twitter–you’ll be subject to a DISCUS violation right off the bat because of the service’s inability to filter by legal purchase age.

When it comes to cultivating your brand’s online community of enthusiasts, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.  On the other hand, with enough thought and research, you’ll find that there’s almost always a solution that will fit out of the many options that are out there.